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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552515">A Damsel Through a Different Lens</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemandycat/pseuds/bluemandycat'>bluemandycat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Archvillain Series - Barry Lyga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(or as I have lovingly nicknamed it Reverse Reverse AU), F/M, M/M, Superhero Jack Stanley, Supervillain Mairi Mactaggert, reverse au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 17:27:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23552515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemandycat/pseuds/bluemandycat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A reimagining of the Archvillain series, with the roles reversed. Mairi is now a supervillain, Jack is the resident superhero, Kyle is the normal best friend, and Mike is the shadowy supervillain. They're all still twelve and act it. This will start at around book 1 and go on into Stories I Never Told territory– hopefully.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kyle Camden/Mad Mask, Mairi Mactaggert/Mighty Mike</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Archvillain Pt. 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey! It's been like, a full year since I've written Archvillain fanfiction. Life's always crazy, but since we're in quarantine I figured it would be a good time to post this. </p><p>Based off an AU I came up with on archvillain-fandom, to which Barry Lyga replied "canon." I then decided to run with it, because villain Mairi is just such a rich vein.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mairi Mactaggert liked to consider herself a sweet girl, but she couldn’t help but grouse as she walked home from after school detention. An after school detention that she had received unjustly, she might add. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t her fault that Kyle had been sleeping in class! Kyle Camden was her best friend, and the smartest person Mairi knew. He was so smart, in fact, that he had been offered an internship at Lundergaard Labs, a prominent technology company on the outskirts of Bouring, Colorado. Ever since the coal mines had closed down, Lundergaard Labs had been the main thing that kept pokey little Bouring chugging along.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Which was why Kyle interning under Walter Lundergaard himself was such a big deal. Three days out of every week, he had to leave school early and work at the lab until 10 PM. Between that and homework, Mairi knew that Kyle was getting to sleep at 2, maybe 3 AM every day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So you could kinda forgive him for sleeping in class. Mairi had seriously only meant to poke him with her pencil to wake him up. Unfortunately, she had forgotten that she had just sharpened her pencil, and Kyle had let out a yell as he woke up. Flash forward about ten minutes of explaining herself to the guidance counselor, and Mairi had found herself with an after-school detention. For “stabbing her classmate.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gimme a break!</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She huffed as she walked home in the dark. It was only 5:30, but it was already pitch black outside. And because she had detention, she had missed the bus. Meaning that she had to walk home in the dark.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ah well. At least the stars were pretty. There was Pegasus– and there was Orion, and Ursa Major! Looking at the stars was Mairi’s favorite thing to do with Kyle. She wished he was here to see that beautiful shooting star. And that one, and that one, and that one… hold on… </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stopped and watched the sky. As far as she knew, there hadn’t been a meteor shower scheduled for that night. But here she saw thousands of blue-tinged stars streak across the sky to hover over the old cornfield next to the school. This was a once in a lifetime event!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi ran to the field to get a better look.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Archvillain Pt. 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mairi creates her version of Erasmus.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mairi had superpowers! Real, actual, superpowers!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The normal part of her insisted that this was impossible, but her new super-brain corrected her, and told her it was merely </span>
  <em>
    <span>improbable. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>improbable </span>
  </em>
  <span>that she had suddenly contracted super-speed, super-strength, and a super-brain to match.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>More improbable was the fact that she wasn’t the only one. The new kid at school, Jack Stanley, had all the powers that she had, and more. Well, except for the super-brain. Jack was, bless his heart, a little dull.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But that was the only thing that Mairi had on him. In addition to flying, he had lasers, freeze vision, super-hearing… the list went on. Worst of all, he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>loved. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Mairi had always considered herself a popular person. She worked hard to be funny and confident, so it made sense that other kids liked her. Jack, on the other hand… Well, Jack was a pompous braggart that </span>
  <em>
    <span>reveled</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the attention he was given. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And boy howdy, was he given attention! It seemed like you couldn’t throw a stone in Bouring without hitting an image of “Jack of All Trades” doing some good deed. He had already been on four talk shows, gotten to go to a red carpet event, and was rumored to have a meeting with the president soon. If Jack was playing the part of a superhero for the fame, he was succeeding. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He shouldn’t have superpowers</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Mairi thought, as she soldered the innards of her new iPhone. She was sitting at her desk, praying that her parents wouldn’t walk in to ask what she was doing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what Kyle sees in him, Sashimi,” she said to her cat. Sashimi was curled up on Mairi’s bed, but at her name let out a tiny </span>
  <em>
    <span>mrrp.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was probably what Mairi hated most about Jack. Kyle was </span>
  <em>
    <span>fascinated </span>
  </em>
  <span>by him. This, in itself, was not surprising. Kyle had a habit of attempting to deconstruct anything– or </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone– </span>
  </em>
  <span>he didn’t immediately understand. What was surprising was that Jack seemed to enjoy having nerdy, overworked Kyle blasting him with questions. They had even begun hanging out together outside of school!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi wasn’t an idiot. She knew that Kyle was only a status symbol to Jack. He was the kind of person who enjoyed having cronies all around him. She’d be damned if she let her best friend become one of those cronies!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Unfortunately, due to Kyle’s case of Jack-itis, Mairi found herself without allies in her crusade against Jack of All Trades. And so, in order to bring this creep to justice, she had begun work on the world’s first artificial intelligence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She gently closed the casing of her phone, which she had painted blue with pink lightning bolts. She held down the power button, put her earbuds in with trembling hands, and waited. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The phone booted up, and she heard a voice not unlike her own come through her earbuds. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Mairi,” the voice said. “My name is Hypatia. We’re going to expose Jack of All Trades as evil now, aren’t we?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi smiled. Things were looking up. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Archvillain Pt. 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mairi attempts to provoke Jack during a parade in his honor. You already know it doesn't go well.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Objective: Expose Jack of All Trades as evil at the parade celebrating “All Trade’s Day.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Plan: Goad the superhero into a fight by firing her new Irritation Ray at him. The Irritation Ray would only produce a mild stinging sensation in whoever was shot with it, but hopefully Jack would take the bait. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Method of Disguise: A costume made by layering t-shirts in varying shades of red. A flaming red hooded cape and a mirrored visor (both of her own making) completed the look. She didn’t want to reveal to her parents or Kyle that she had superpowers. That would just worry them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Super-Cool Superhero Name: Since normal people were mostly dull, she suspected they’d focus on her brilliant red cape. So she would call herself...the Red Flag! Simple, punchy, easily marketable. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Problem: The Irritation Ray was extremely well-built, but the energy source was too powerful for something that was supposed to sting. The added power made it </span>
  <em>
    <span>sear. </span>
  </em>
  <span>So less irritating, more </span>
  <em>
    <span>deadly. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi fumbled with the controls of the device, which was overheating. This had already lead to four misfires– two of which hit Jack of All Trades. The other two had exploded into the road and the City Hall. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The people on the narrow street below were elbowing each other out of the way to escape. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Idiots</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought. They’d only trample each other. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jack of All Trades soared up and landed a punch into her stomach– knocking the wind out of her. Thankfully, she didn’t lose a grip on her device.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you crazy?” she shouted at him. Her voice was hoarse from panic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You are!” he shouted back, which didn’t even make sense. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Incoming in five, four…” </span>
  </em>
  <span>said Hypatia, in her ear. Her voice was calm, considering the circumstances, but then again she had no senses. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi shot off another blast, aiming just above Jack’s head at the top of the library. Bricks crumbled, and Mairi smelled burnt hair. She had a moment of panic before she remembered hers was neatly tied away under her hood. Besides, Jack’s head was smoking. She had singed his perfect blonde hair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She felt illogically giddy about that small win– at least, until she saw the fire in the superhero’s eyes. Her Irritation Ray began to twitch in her hands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“You may want to take that into the stratosphere. It’s going to explode,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hypatia suggested. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sighing, Mairi jetted upward, leaving a sonic boom as a calling card. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Archvillain Pt. 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mairi scans Jack at lunchtime.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this is still going on! Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Mairi sighed, picking up her lunch tray. Life just wasn’t on her side. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>After the colossal failure of All Trade’s Day, the media had gone wild. A few grainy photos of her poised in the air with her Irritation Ray, and bam! She was suddenly public enemy number one. Literally. She had been moved to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list, for “unauthorized use of metahuman powers.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Whatever. Just because she wanted to maintain a secret identity didn’t mean she was the bad guy, no matter what anyone else thought. Her one condolence was that they didn’t know a lot about her. Newspapers called her “the Red Freak,” which was so annoyingly close to Red Flag that it bugged her. But they hadn’t caught her hair color or her voice, which she supposed was lucky.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She plunked her tray down next to Kyle. “Hi,” she said flatly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He looked at her. His dark bangs could not conceal that his eyes had heavy bags under them, and there was writing on his wrist. She only read </span>
  <em>
    <span>Conscious relativity of the circumstances leads to– </span>
  </em>
  <span>before the sentence disappeared under his shirt sleeve. “Hi,” he replied. “Um, you know Jack is sitting here, right?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi attempted to make a face like she didn’t care. “So?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In truth, she cared quite a bit. Jack was stuck up and egotistical, which is why she had sworn to destroy him. And in order to destroy him (and therefore snap Kyle back into his right mind), she had to get close enough for Hypatia to scan him and discover his weaknesses.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kyle laughed awkwardly. “Mairi, you’re not exactly subtle. Why do you hate Jack so much?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She thought long and hard on what to reply. With her super-brain, that only took about seven seconds. “He’s just full of himself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s not full of himself!” Kyle objected, which was quite unlike him. He always leapt at the chance to sardonically talk about their classmates, regardless of whether they were his friends or not. Since kindergarten, he had been tapping on her arm in order to whisper that Mrs. So-And-So was really embarrassing herself or that Little Timmy had peed his pants. She was the only one he ever shared his thoughts with, and the only one he never made fun of. Mairi had always felt like they were two against the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Um, wow, who are you and what have you done with Kyle?” she laughed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I just–” Kyle began, but they were interrupted by Jack sitting down. Seven or eight of his fans followed, squeezing next to Mairi and Kyle. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ugh.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Kyle,” Jack said smoothly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” Kyle said quickly, before stuffing his burger in his mouth. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What was up with him?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” said Mairi, even though she hadn’t been addressed. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jack tilted his head and gave her a friendly smile. “You’re Mairi, right?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yup,” she said, popping the </span>
  <em>
    <span>P </span>
  </em>
  <span>disdainfully.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jack said.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, if he only knew, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Mairi thought. “All good, I hope,” she said out loud.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Jack replied.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was an awkward silence. Kyle was beet-red. Not one of Jack’s groupies made an effort to join the conversation, proving to Mairi that fanaticism was useless.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Finally, Jack pointed to Hypatia. “Nice phone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the inanity of that. “Thanks.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What are the specs? I’m kind of into tech stuff.” He held out a hand, and she resisted the urge to cheer. Having him hold it would be so much better for her scan! She handed Hypatia over.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s just an iPhone 8, dude,” she replied.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He scrolled aimlessly. “Hm, I’m really more of a fan of Androids.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mairi resisted the urge to say, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hypatia is one of those, too</span>
  </em>
  <span>, even though it would have been really clever. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A good UI is nothing to scoff at,” Kyle piped up. “Even though the processing power on iPhones is significantly worse.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Jack laughed, and Mairi felt a stab of… something. “Woah, guess I should have known better to talk about tech stuff with a genius at the table.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kyle snorted. “I’m not!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You are.” Jack handed the phone back to Mairi. “Thanks for letting me look at it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She smiled. “Trust me, the pleasure’s all mine.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If anyone actually reads this, hmu at archvillain-fandom on Tumblr.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Be sure to comment/kudo/hmu on archvillain-fandom on Tumblr, because that's what motivates me to continue writing these fics! I barely get any attention, but if I know there's someone reading (and hopefully enjoying!) I'll know I'm writing for someone other than myself.</p><p>Hope you enjoyed!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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